Melbourne has been the premiership favourite in recent weeks, but the Western Bulldogs and the Brisbane Lions look to be the strongest teams at the moment.
About
two-thirds of the way through the 2021 AFL season there now looks to be six
‘top’ teams, that is six teams that have mostly guaranteed a finals spot – the
Western Bulldogs, Melbourne, Brisbane, Port Adelaide, Geelong, and Sydney.
Melbourne
had been the premiership favourites in recent weeks, given their great record
against the other top sides. The Demons had won this season against all of the
Bulldogs, Brisbane, and Geelong by more than 20 points, and also beat Sydney,
with Port to come this weekend.
These
were great performances by the Demons, and may give them some confidence at
finals time. However, the rankings have them as only the fifth-strongest side
(TAB has them third in terms of premiership betting). Some poorer performances
against lower sides – such as their loss against GWS at the MCG on the weekend
– have partially offset their strong record against the top teams. This also
reflects though that some other teams have, as a whole, put up more impressive
performances over the season.
One
side however has been challenging the Bulldogs for their ability to demolish
teams in recent weeks, which is the Brisbane Lions. Brisbane started the season
slowly, which included a first round loss to the Swans that had some
questioning their premiership credentials (I’m
sorry Lions). In
the past nine weeks though they have had five ‘very good’ performances (see
table above) – beating Port and Geelong (at home) by more than 40 points, and
thrashing Gold Coast, Adelaide, and GWS. They arguably have no main area of
weakness at the moment, and if they can get a top-two finish and home finals
(state border restrictions permitting) they look like they will be pretty hard
to stop.
Of the
other ‘contenders’, Geelong has again been very solid, although its two
strongest wins have come against West Coast and Richmond – two teams whose
stocks are falling. Port Adelaide meanwhile has had plenty of ‘good’
performances this season (see table above), but not dominant performances. Its
best win was against the Gold Coast Suns, which possibly did not get as much
credit as it should have, with the media and fans focusing more on the Suns for
their poor performance. Port looks solid as well, but not among the top
contenders at present.
As for
the Swans, despite their huge win against West Coast (in Geelong!) on the
weekend, they look to be an ‘outside’ contender. Their two best wins prior to
that, which were big away wins against Brisbane and Richmond, came in the first
three rounds. In the eleven weeks in between they have been about average, with
that stretch including fairly large losses to lowly-ranked teams Gold Coast and
Hawthorn.
Still to
state the somewhat obvious, winning the actual games from here on out will be
crucial. A team may look to be the strongest, but given how close the top sides
are on the ladder a couple of dropped matches could see it have to try and win
the premiership from outside the top two or even the top four. The top teams
may have got clear of the pack and virtually secured their finals spots, but
there will still be plenty of interest in where exactly they end up heading
into September.
No comments:
Post a Comment